U. hits $128M in private donations

For the third year in a row, the University set a record for receiving the most private donations.
University President Richard L. McCormick announced the 2008-09 fiscal year saw a 6 percent increase in private donations to the University, totaling more than $128 million in gifts and pledges.
“Despite one of the most severe economic downturns in recent history, many individuals, foundations and corporations have continued to express their confidence in Rutgers through their generous support of our programs and initiatives,” said McCormick in a press release.
The Rutgers University Foundation, which fundraises for the University, recorded increases in total donations and pledges from individuals — from $66.2 million to $71.2 million — and foundations $32.2 million to $40.2 million, according to the release.
The fundraising success they experienced last year was due to both the generosity of donors and the hard work of the fundraisers, said President of the Rutgers University Foundation Carol Herring.
“The fundraising staff knew it would be a tough year, and they worked very hard and talked to a lot of people,” Herring said. “We are very fortunate to have a very loyal alumnae body that recognizes the fact that public universities need support right now — not just the private universities — because of decreases in government funding.”
She said the donations came from a variety of sources, including corporate and individual donors.
“Many of our donors received financial aid when they were in school, and they want to give something back… The corporate donors really stretched themselves to give, because they were hit very hard [by the recession]. We expected their donations to be down a lot, but they were not,” Herring said.
Corporate giving declined to $17.2 million from $22.4 million, according to the release.
Despite the success of last year, Herring said she is anticipating a tough year for fundraising in 2009-10.
“The next year is going to be a really tough year,” she said. “The economy hasn’t turned around enough to make donors confident [and] they are being very cautious because they have to be. We really have to hope we receive more large gifts this year.”
But much of the success of the past year was due to large donations, such as the record-breaking $13 million donated anonymously, said Joyce Hendricks, the foundation’s associate vice president of corporate and foundation relations. That donation will be used to erect a new building for the Rutgers Business School on Livingston campus.
“I think we have great students here at Rutgers, and I have a great staff,” Hendricks said. “As we inform people that our students are top-notch, [that] we have great faculty [and that] we have great research, we inform donors of the wonderful things happening here at Rutgers, and they want to support us.”
Hendricks said corporate donations came from a wide variety of sources including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Novartis, AT&T, Verizon, PSEG, Prudential and Bank of America, among others.
“There are a lot of wonderful corporate supporters of Rutgers University — too many to mention,” she said. “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, based out of Princeton, gave us a grant to begin the Institute for Food Nutrition and Health this past year. That was $10 million.”
The hard work of the past year has fueled the foundation’s fundraising success, while also honing the fundraising skills of staff, said James Dawson, the foundation’s vice president of gift planning.
“The foundation, by virtue of taking on more fundraisers, [is] becoming more proficient in our abilities and activities, and we have had some outstanding examples of donor generosity,” Dawson said. “We are working harder, smarter and better.”